Guild Wars 2 is over ten years previous now, and final yr it introduced its long-running storyline to an in depth with its third enlargement. Now its builders say they need to launch smaller and cheaper expansions extra repeatedly, with quarterly updates filling the gaps in between.
Historically, expansions have been launched for Guild Wars 2 each 2-4 years, with ‘Living World’ seasons growing the story in-between. “This made it tough to concurrently develop expansions whereas supporting the game with common content material updates. It additionally meant that many areas of the game went undersupported,” says the latest studio update.
Resources are going to be reallocated to alter that in future, with ArenaNet “releasing smaller expansions extra steadily at a barely lowered value and including extra content material for these expansions by means of quarterly updates, which means that the subsequent massive launch is simply ever just a few months away.”
Each enlargement will kick off a brand new story arc, with “two new open-world maps, two Strike Missions, new gameplay and fight options, new Masteries, and new rewards.” The quarterly updates will then add a brand new open-world map, new story chapters, problem modes, a brand new fractal dungeon and problem mode,and new rewards. “Once that enlargement’s story is full, the subsequent enlargement will probably be simply across the nook.”
For years, Guild Wars 2 felt like the usual bearer for MMOs that weren’t World Of Warcraft. That title has extra just lately handed to Final Fantasy XIV. To me, an outsider to each games, this sounds rather a lot like Guild Wars 2 shifting to an replace mannequin that extra intently resembles how Final Fantasy does issues.
The full post incorporates a extra particular roadmap for the primary half of 2023, together with the discharge of the subsequent chapter of final yr’s End Of Dragons enlargement on February twenty eighth. It seems like the total shift to the brand new enlargement launch cadence will occur within the second half of the yr, with extra particulars to return later.